The Mauritian government has joined the country’s private sector in finding an alternative to electrical cooling, which could save data centre operators millions per annum in cooling costs.

“The Mauritius Eco-Park is in the process of developing a system that uses sea water air conditioning to cool data centres. The concept taps deep water currents that bring colder water, utilizing this instead of electricity to provide cooling. This technology means that data centres can bring down their cooling costs by 50% percent”, explained Raju Jaddoo, Managing Director of the Mauritian Board of Investment (BOI).

To address these issues, a 212ha site has been acquired and the proof of concept has been developed.
“The Eco-Park will build a system of pipes that extend two miles offshore. The pipe system will run roughly 1000 metres beneath the surface of the ocean to allow it to tap into the much colder water. This cold water will then be transported back to the data centre complex and used to cool the data centres instead of electricity consuming coolers”, added Jaddoo.

Although the investment is relatively high, studies have shown long-term energy savings in cooling requirements of between 75% and 90% using this technology, which is not a novelty, but hasn’t been adopted so far in a data centre environment.

Jaddoo also commented on the recent laying of undersea cables which should benefit Mauritius and make the country a favourable data centre destination.

“With the new bandwidth capacity that is now available as a result of the current and future undersea cables, we foresee that Mauritius will have the same level of capacity as Singapore and Hong Kong by 2012”, he says.

Set up in March 2001 through the enactment of the Investment Promotion Act, the Board of Investment (BOI) is the apex agency to promote and facilitate investment in Mauritius.